Manila’s tinderbox slums an endless battle for firefighters
MANILA: One scorching afternoon this month, inhabitants of a slum in the Philippine capital frantically hurled buckets of water to try to save their homes from a raging fire.
Six hours later, their efforts proved to no avail.
There have been over 2,200 fires in Manila this year and the majority of these have occurred in slum areas, data from the Bureau of Fire Protection showed.
In a country with a yawning wealth gap, the hardest hit are the urban poor who call the shanties home.
Marybeth Antier, 24, recalled with horror a recent fire that killed six members of her family. At their funeral, their bodies were squeezed into the two caskets she could afford.
“I saw the building where we live already ablaze,” she said. “My child was inside but I could not enter anymore.”
For the capital’s thousands of firefighters, the slums are sprawling, unregulated tinderboxes.
Tangles of drooping wires run from one electric post to another along the narrow alleys of the city’s most neglected communities, crowded with shacks made from plywood and coconut tree lumber.
The Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) said the so-called informal settlers complicate efforts to save property and lives.
Fire engines struggle to navigate along pathways littered with vehicles, food carts and stalls.
Faulty electrical connections, often dangerously rigged and overloaded by residents, unattended stoves and carelessly tossed cigarettes are the main causes of the fires.